Breathless
by Jessa4865
Summary: A Spooked post-ep. A short piece to resolve things.


Breathless

Jezyk

A Spooked post-ep

The stairwell was dark and close and suspiciously silent as he led Terri toward the back door. The only sound came from their feet hitting the cement; his steps loud and heavy, hers soft and uncertain. It seemed wrong to him that her steps sounded so light and feminine; he'd had thought someone who'd slit her cousin's and a random stranger's throats wouldn't sound so delicate.

He came to a stop at the back door. It was as far as he could go. Cragen had given him an order to escort her to the exit and, although it had gone against every fiber of his being, Elliot had done so. He wasn't going to open the door and stand guard over Terri. It was hard enough to let a cold-blooded murderer go free. He had no intention of protecting her too.

No, he'd leave that to Porter.

Porter could take care of Terri.

Elliot would take care of Olivia.

To each his Dulcinea.

Porter could have the murdering bitch. All the power to him, Elliot thought. They could run off and play with their little spy gadgets and bug PD phones together and maybe even murder some more people. Meanwhile Elliott would be busy helping pick up the pieces Porter had left behind. Helping Olivia once again put herself back together after letting herself get hurt. And he feared this one would be bad. This wasn't some ill-conceived undercover op that was doomed from the start. This was someone she'd trusted, someone she'd known for years.

He wondered if the smug bastard knew Elliot had been hiding out in her bedroom while listening in on their little date. A smug grin appeared on his mouth while he remembered that time, knowing he had the power to end the faux intimacy at any moment, recalling how he'd decided, albeit with TARU's blessing, just when the date was over. Porter may have caught Olivia's attention for a short time, but she was a cop through and through. And Porter wasn't going to stick around anyway. They had been through this before, after all. Porter had a tendency to pop up suddenly, stir up the pot a bit, and then slink away.

But Elliot had never been so happy to see him go.

Because Porter had never caused so much damage.

Olivia had enough wounds. She didn't need some jerk adding to her scars.

The silence dragged on, both of them shifting awkwardly in the small space of the landing. Had Terri been in handcuffs, Elliot would have been comfortable in the silence of having won another round with the criminal element of society. Instead it seemed as though he ought to be making conversation with the woman who stood next to him. It wasn't really conversation that he was worried about though. He just hated the heavy, weird silence that seemed to strangle him. It wasn't even about Terri at all, although he was still bristling at the idea of letting an admitted murderer walk free was less than pleasant.

No, Elliot's biggest issue at that particular moment was the lengthy delay. He'd been charged with escorting Terri to the door and he'd done so with the expectation that he wouldn't have to stand there and entertain the lying murderer too. He'd done it because he thought it would only take a few seconds of his time.

But really, if he were being honest, the nervousness pulsing through his veins had nothing at all to do with Terri Banes nor the amount of time he had to spend alone with the woman nor his inability to converse happily with her. Abhorrent as the situation was, Terri's importance in his life was already beginning to fade. The case was over. Once the paperwork was finished and filed, he'd probably never think of her again. He was anxious because he knew full well that Cragen wasn't the reason for Porter's delay. He knew Porter was with Olivia, probably pleading his case, hopefully not earning her trust back.

Porter, as opposed to Terri's soon to be forgotten self, had a decided tendency to keep turning up like a bad penny, making Elliot feel like the air was being choked out of him. He couldn't breathe when the bastard was around. Elliot would fear his reappearance forever. And while he looked over his shoulder for the fed who was up to no good, Elliot knew his partner's instincts would be compromised as she recovered from the new damage that the bastard had inflicted on her. The pair of them would be in a weak, vulnerable position until Porter had been gone long enough that they could almost pretend he'd never been there at all.

Finally, Elliot heard the crash of someone slamming through the metal door two flights above them. The loud, sloppy footsteps that followed sounded more like what Elliot had expected for a murderer. And as Porter's form came jogging down toward them, quickly emerging from the shadows above them, Elliot knew he was right about that. Certainly there were more bodies than one drug dealer. Certainly there were more murders than the two Terri had committed with Porter's help.

Porter's face was tight, hard, his eyes dark and hooded.

Elliot couldn't hold back the smirk. Maybe Porter and his princess were walking away, maybe Porter had taken his own good time to find Terri, maybe Elliot had been unhappy with how long Porter had taken to say goodbye to Olivia, but whatever conversation he'd had with her, whatever she'd had left to say to him, hadn't ended well. That much was obvious in Porter's demeanor. Elliot barely held back a victory dance.

With an unhappy nod in Elliot's direction, Porter reached for the door, ready to lead Terri to freedom.

But Elliot wasn't done yet. He hadn't stood there and waited for the man just to watch him walk away like everything was fine. He reached out, his fingers grabbing Porter's sleeve, his eyes burning with things he couldn't, wouldn't, say.

Porter swallowed hard when he met Elliot's eyes, breaking the stare only long enough to glance at Terri and offer her a set of keys. "Wait for me by the car."

The woman didn't break her silence as she accepted the keys, pushing through the door and disappearing from Elliot's consciousness as though she'd never existed at all.

Slowly, Porter's eyes turned back to Elliot, annoyance dancing across his face. "What?"

So many things flashed through his mind, millions of things he really wanted to say, none of them things that Porter wanted to hear, none of them things Olivia would approve of. His hand shifted back to his waist, brushing against his gun, nearly reaching for the weapon and explaining himself to Porter in no uncertain terms. Instead, Elliot managed to keep himself almost under control as he reached up, his hands pushing Porter's shoulders, shoving the bastard hard into the wall.

"Don't think for one second I'll ever forget what you did here." Elliot's voice sounded unfamiliar even to his own ears. Normally when he had the occasion to threaten someone, he was afraid of someone overhearing, someone who might be upset by his animalistic nature. But at the moment, he didn't care who heard him. He wanted to get his point across.

For just a second, Porter's eyes widened. Whether due to shock or fear, he quickly hid the response, narrowing his eyes and maintaining his half smile. "What exactly did I do? Besides protecting the lives of people who are protecting this country?"

Elliot's fists tightened around the fabric of Porter's shirt, shoving him hard again, having the sense to let go of the man before he let go of his control. "Call it whatever you want, you son of a bitch." Semantics weren't his forte on a good day. And it could hardly be a good day with the image of his terrified partner with a gun to her head still so fresh. "You nearly got my partner killed."

Porter let out a laugh, although neither one of them believed it was good humor. "I saved your partner, dumb ass. While you were busy chatting up the bastard."

Elliot shuddered with the force of the rage that rolled through him. He hadn't been chatting Rojas up. He'd been trying to get the gun pointed anywhere but at Olivia. With Rojas' eye darting between himself and Olivia, taking a shot at him would have endangered Olivia's life even more.

But Elliot quickly redirected his thoughts, redirecting the focus where it belonged. "There's no way Rojas made her that fast. He knew she was a cop. He knew who to look for." Unable, or unwilling, to hold back anymore, Elliot grabbed at Porter again, throwing him into the wall once more. "You told him we'd be there. You told him what we looked like. You told him to grab her."

Porter's face was impassive, somehow goading Elliot even more than if he'd tried to defend himself.

"You told Terri what to do with the bodies, how to stage the rape. You knew we'd catch the case. You did it on purpose. You wanted Olivia involved in this!"

Porter's hands remained stubbornly at his sides as he continued to appear completely unaffected by Elliot's anger and words. Finally, he blinked, reaching up to adjust his collar as though they were just having a friendly discussion. "You have no proof of that. You have no proof of anything."

Elliot's world stop turning. His mouth fell open. His brain stopped working. He'd been expecting an adamant denial. He'd been expecting Porter to be upset at the suggestion. He'd been expecting anything besides what amounted to an admission by the prick.

Porter didn't blink. He smirked at the shock on Elliot's face. He shrugged nonchalantly. "I was there when it counted. I wasn't going to let her get hurt."

Elliot couldn't speak. Emotional hurt counted in his book, although apparently Porter only counted the physical. He swore to himself that he'd never, no matter how much he might want to, reveal what Porter had given up. It might seem like a great way to keep Olivia from ever speaking to Porter again, but Elliot wouldn't be responsible for causing her the pain of knowing how little Porter thought of her.

Satisfied that their conversation was over, Porter stepped toward the door and offered Elliot a smile. "Nice working with you."

It was the last straw. Without conscious thought, Elliot's fist swung out, catching the unsuspecting man's face, forcing his head to jerk back as blood sprayed from his lip. Porter raised his hand to touch his mouth, frowning when he glanced at it and saw the blood.

Elliot smiled at him, content with having let some of the anger out on the right person. "Stay the hell away from her." His darkened eyes finished the threat, silently telling Porter how very far Elliot would go to protect her.

A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned, his blood running cold when he saw the familiar shape of his partner looking down from one flight above.

God fucking damn it.

Protecting her was one thing. Her finding out about it was something entirely different.

She was just as silent as she made her way down half of the steps that separated them, making Elliot wonder where she'd learned such a skill. Her eyes held his, her pursed lips revealing that she'd seen and heard plenty.

Chastised without needing a word, Elliot looked away, noticing Porter nursing his busted lip and the way the other man's eyes were dancing. Olivia wasn't happy with Elliot's behavior and they all knew it. The last thing Elliot could bear would be having Olivia correct him in front of Porter. He seriously thought it might kill him, if only because he truly believed his actions were completely justified.

But rather than the accusing question of what was going on, rather than the challenge of what did he think he was doing, Olivia's voice was friendly. "Are you ready to go, El?"

Utter confusion dragged his eyes to her face as he searched for the hidden meaning. They didn't live together. They never went home together. They rarely even left at the same time. So surely she hadn't come looking for him to ask if he was ready to leave. As well as he knew his partner, he didn't have a fucking clue what she was playing at.

Porter stepped forward, his mouth opening as if to speak.

For one second, Olivia's eyes darted over to him, sharpening and narrowing.

As Porter stepped back against the door, Olivia's eyes moved back to Elliot, her expression lightening.

And then he got it. He understood her message. He was so fucking happy he smiled at her as he started up the steps to meet her. "Yeah, I'm good."

She turned around and fell in step with him as they ascended the stairs. "Let's get out of here."

Porter could have fallen off the Earth for all Elliot cared anymore. She'd had, probably still had, feelings for the man. Although he couldn't fathom why she would, he still recognized it. But Porter had crossed a line in her book and she was finished with him. She wanted Porter to know that she was siding with Elliot.

They were a team. A unit. No one was going to come between them. And when Olivia was hurting, she wanted her partner.

As they walked past the squad room and headed for the elevators, Olivia glanced over at him. "Did it feel good?"

Still unable to wipe the smile off his face, Elliot looked at her. "What?"

"Decking that son of a bitch."

He grinned harder, noticing the contagious effect it had on his partner. She already knew the answer; she'd just wanted him to know they were ok. He guided her into the waiting elevator with a hand to her back. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink."

He didn't even have to look at her to know she was still grinning. Even so, his eyes turned towards her. The strangled sensation finally lifted, letting him smile back at his partner.


End file.
